Educators all across the country have been saying for years that these tests are a waste of educational time. The tests are often flawed, they are expensive for the district, and they decrease the students desire to attend school.

The problems facing Egypt are grounded in economics and go far beyond the power of the political system to correct. Moreover, these same problems beset Syria and other nations of the Middle East and represent a growing cancer in the region that cannot be repaired in today's world.

Today, on the second anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, the "Black Bloc" tactic of protest is on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt - on the front lines of clashes with security forces, stirring up debate among activists amid clouds of tear gas and a frenzy of tweets.

In 127 years, they had never done this before. The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission reversed a decision and fired a police officer. The reversal followed a week of protests by community groups and leaders.

Over the past months, the youth climate movement and its allies have been raising the stakes. In its first month alone, the fossil fuel divestment movement reached 192 campuses, and even spread to the city of Seattle. But we're not going to stop there.

We went down into the Grand Canyon when Butch got home from the war. Neither of us had thought about a destination with any detail but the canyon was dramatic enough to get our attention and Butch needed the world to be beautiful for even a few minutes.

Take a moment and listen to the eloquent words of an 11-year-old girl in the video below. If a child can understand this, how come world leaders are still silent on making real changes to address these urgent issues?

Perhaps it is time for peaceful Americans to offer an alternative, for hundreds of thousands of unarmed folks to march on NRA headquarters and the Congress demanding gun control, holding a vigil in the name of reasonable discourse.